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Levi Leipheimer Wins 2011 Tour of Utah

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Levi Leipheimer Wins 2011 Tour of Utah

The final day of racing brought Team RadioShack's Levi Leipheimer back to a familiar place in his former residence of Utah - the top step of the podium in the 2011 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah.

The final day of racing brought Team RadioShack's Levi Leipheimer back to a familiar place in his former residence of Utah - the top step of the podium in the 2011 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah.

After taking the yellow jersey in Friday's individual time trial, Leipheimer and his RadioShack teammates worked tirelessly to protect his lead and give him a repeat performance in the race tagged as "America's Toughest Stage Race". Today's queen stage of racing had more than 11,000 vertical feet/ 3353 meters of climbing from Park City to the famous ski area of Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort.

In an agreement to acknowledge the incredible work all week of Sergio Henao and his team Gobernacion de Antioquia, Leipheimer didn't contest the sprint and stayed on the wheel as the Colombian claimed the stage win.

Leipheimer won the general classification by 23-seconds to Sergio Henao.

In addition to pulling countless miles on the front all day, Jani Brajkovic rode away from his closest competitor to arrive third at the finish line, a spot he claims on the final podium as well.

"It feels great," Leipheimer told Roadcycling.com and Roadcycling.mobi when asked how it felt to win the Tour of Utah for the second year in a row. "I'm really proud of this. I lived here for a few years and I know the roads so it was very special today, especially coming up the last climb. It was like riding in the Tour de France. There were fans everywhere." All along the alpine route there were large crowds throughout the day.

"The Colombian Gobernacion de Antioquia team threw everything at us today," Leipheimer continued and added "At one moment it was just Jani and I against four of them and Jani was pulling the entire way. Then some of my other teammates came back and showed their true fighting spirit. They got me to the bottom of the climb and then it was all up to me. Fortunately I felt great today."

Team RadioShack sports director Alain Gallopin said "Yesterday, the Colombians of Gobernación de Antioquia caused us a lot of trouble. Today we had again the race under control but it was hard. We played it a bit tactically today. We let the other teams interested in other classifications do the hard work in the beginning so that we still had enough riders to counter the attacks of Oscar Sevilla and his Colombian teammates. We had to beat them in their own territories: altitude, uphill and heat. Philip Deignan and Ben King did a tremendous job today."

Finishing third overall, Team RadioShack's Jani Brajkovic proved to be fully recovered from his collarbone fracture and concussion in the Tour de France.

"Jani is ready for the 2011 Vuelta a Espana," concluded Alain Gallopin and added "Just as Levi Leipheimer is ready for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado. The season is not over yet."